Mike Harris faces barrage on stand
Ex-premier to testify at inquiry Harris could shed light on Ipperwash
FOREST, ONT.— After scores of witnesses and thousands of hours of testimony at the Ipperwash inquiry, former Ontario premier Mike Harris is emerging as the man with all — certainly many — of the answers. And he can expect a tough grilling when he takes the witness stand in the third week of January.
That became even more evident last week when testimony from two witnesses — former attorney general Charles Harnick and Debbie Hutton, who worked as a key Harris aide — failed to clarify Harris’ role in the operation that led to the shooting death by police of native activist Anthony ( Dudley) George. The inquiry, by Justice Sidney Linden, has heard testimony from scores of government, police and other witnesses involved in the massive late- night Ontario Provincial Police operation that cleared Ipperwash Provincial Park, and much of it centres on the role Harris played in the strategy discussions at Queen’s Park in the hours before police went into action.
Last Friday Harnick rejected as “ absolutely absurd” suggestions that he received instructions from Harris to remove native occupiers from the park within 24 hours.
“ Did people actually think that I had some magical way of removing people from the park within 24 hours?” wondered Harnick, who returns for another day of testimony here today.
“ It’s absurd. It’s absolutely absurd.” And Hutton, who also testified earlier this month, has been unable to shed much light on key actions in the run- up to the police operation. At one point during her testimony a lawyer wondered if she was suffering from memory loss, noting she’d answered “ I don’t recall,” or words to that effect, 134 times. So Harris, when he appears,
can expect to be asked to fill in some of the key blanks, starting with what he was told, and what orders did he issue?
Did he discuss the occupation with Harnick?
What instructions, if any, did he issue to the attorney- general?
What did Hutton tell him about her discussions with senior provincial bureaucrats and police?
Did he issue instructions, to anyone at any point, ordering the park be cleared of protesters?
Did he realize he was speaking in front of two police officers Sept. 6 when he discussed the Ipperwash situation in his Queen’s Park dining room?
What did he expect would happen as a result of his instructions?
After 17 months of testimony, the details surrounding what did happen that night on Lake Huron, after a three- day park occupation natives said was aimed at protecting native burial grounds, is up for debate. But what is clear, after more than a thousand hours of testimony, is what didn’t happen.
Natives weren’t armed when seven OPP officers opened fire during a melee outside the park that began after the force’s riot squad marched on the park late at night, flanked by snipers from the paramilitary tactics and rescue unit. “ As it turned out . . . the First Nations ( people) . . . in the park were not armed,” former OPP commissioner Thomas O’Grady has testified. The OPP didn’t correct false information it gave to the media stating police marched on the park because a gang of natives threatened an area woman’s car with baseball bats. In fact, police marched on the park after one native man threw a single stone at a car driven by another native man. “ It was a long time after the event before I learned that,” OPP Chief Supt. John Carson, who was the Ipperwash incident commander, testified last spring.
Political staff didn’t check if the natives were correct in claiming there were burial grounds in the park. The inquiry has heard that documents supporting the native claim were found in the basement of the Whitney Block in Toronto in 1975 by a Ministry of Natural Resources worker, who then forwarded them to two superiors. “We were not ever advised that,” Debbie Hutton, the former key Harris aide, testified last week, dismissing as speculation comments by a bureaucrat in a Sept. 5, 1995, inter- ministerial meeting that the park might contain a burial ground. The native burial- ground claim was later supported by documents released by the federal government. Hutton repeatedly testified she couldn’t recall anything
Harris said about Ipperwash on Sept. 4, 5 and 6,
1995 — not even Harris’
reaction when he heard
about George’s death.
Lawyer Julian Falconer
of Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto noted a
clerk in his law office tallied 134 times last Tuesday when Hutton testified “I don’t recall,” or words to that effect. Falconer then asked Hutton if she suffered from memory loss. Linden halted the questioning as offensive. One of the things Hutton couldn’t recall was an odd reference connecting the Holocaust to Ipperwash that two police officers say Harris made during a meeting in his Queen’s Park dining room shortly after noon on Sept. 6, 1995.
Scott Patrick, then a staff sergeant with the OPP and now an inspector, testified he didn’t understand comments that somehow connected the native park occupation with the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis.
“ He indicated that this was a test, that they were a new government, and he said this is how things get started, and then he referenced the Holocaust,” Patrick testified. Another OPP officer at the meeting, then Insp. Ron Fox, dismissed the Holocaust comments as “ wild- ass.”
Harris can expect to be asked if he rewarded Hutton’s loyalty with an appointment as vicepresident of Hydro One, a job that Hutton told the inquiry paid her between $ 180,000 and $ 230,000 yearly between 2000 and 2003, when she left to set up a consulting business.
Harris will likely also be asked his thoughts on tape- recorded comments made by Fox immediately after the two men attended the Sept. 6 dining- room meeting. The recording captured Fox quoting Harris as saying that “ natives had been pandered to for too long,” the OPP made mistakes in its handling of the park occupation and “ swift affirmative action” was needed to end the standoff. More than 10 years after George’s death, the park remains closed.